Five Easy Ways To Happy

“Happiness is not something ready made, It comes from your own actions.” ~ Dalai Lama

Life isn’t always a happy place. What with all the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve, gain, do for others, make the world a better place, not throttle the teen when the data overages on the cell phone bill are higher than your car payments, happiness can be hard to find. I get that. Boy do I ever! The thing is, happy isn’t just waiting around for you, you have to go out and find it. Maybe give these five easy ways to happy a try, they work for me… most days. Not on cell phone bill paying day, naturally.

Five Easy Ways To Happy

In a busy life, whether you’re a parent to humans, fury folk, or just yourself doing any combination of these five things can help put a little happy into any day.

Dance, Dance, Dance!

Remember how good it felt when you were a kid and dancing was pure joy?Oh man, Lips Inc took me to Funky Town and I could have cared less who was around – beep! beep! Give yourself permission to groove, spin, plié, two-step, Dougie… whatever. If you’re worried about looking silly, close the office door or head to the laundry room {we know nobody is going in there voluntarily} and shake it.

I love to put on my wireless headphones and shake a tail feather while doing dishes. It’s liberating, and happiness inducing. I’m even not too mortified when I find that I’ve been singing along with JT and The Tennessee Kids and while my own kids are filming me from the hallway. So what if I’m on the down slope of 40-something, I can still take it on down to Dancinville – it makes me HAPPY!

If an abiding adoration for Justin isn’t enough to justify {<– see what I did there!} dancing in your book, how about doing it because it makes you smarter? So says Physiology Today.

Put Pen To Paper

Even if you don’t write for a living, or even as a hobby, the written word still has power. Try writing down six things a day that made you happy. Just simple stuff, not an essay. You can even break that up into three in the morning and three at night. I know I’m happy about coffee when it’s 6:00am, my treadmill when I finally get that endorphin rush three hours later, and sleeping kids are bliss.

Exhale

Sing it with me kids… shoop, shoop, shoop, shoobie doop, doop doop. Okay, that’s about as much Whitney as I can do. The point here is to take time to breath in the good and exhale the bad. Just breathing deeply, quieting your brain for the span of five or six breaths, can bring with it a jolt of joy. The great thing about doing this is anyone can do it, any where, any time, in any situation.

Quiet is hard for me. Not even so much because I have a house full of kids, nor because they’ve all adopted Italian speaking volumes, but because I just have a noisy brain. There is always something rattling around in there, often keeping me from being truly in a moment. Breathing brings me back. That moment may not always be a happy place to be in, but taking control – even for just those few points when I exhale – brings me peace.

Send It To Get It Back

I recently read an article about what’s believed to be the world’s oldest Message in a Bottle washing up on the shores of Germany. Ocean currents had buffeted the bottle around the North Sea since first being set a drift by an English Marine Biologist had set it afloat in 1906. Inside was a post card asking for the finder to fill out where they’d found it and send it back to the university from whence it came.

The thrill of those who found it spread to joy at the folks at the British Marine Biological Association, as well as to people like me who read the story. One little post card touched so many. So why not send off something yourself. Not an email, we get enough of those already. Something written, a note, a card, or even a package, for no reason at all. See how long it takes the happiness to float back to you.

Drink Tea

I completely understand if you aren’t the tea type. I happen to be, but that isn’t the point. While in Ireland this spring one of the best moments I had was just sitting in a tiny tea room, overlooking the cobblestone streets on a rainy afternoon. Just letting life wash over me, hearing the Beatles softly play in the background as heavy accents of gaelic brogue and baking scones filled the air, was probably one of my happiest moments.

You don’t have to travel to Ireland to get that, or even drink tea. Just carve out some time in your day to wrap your hands around a warm (or cold) drink and be.

There is happiness to be found in the simplest of things.

Though this was not a sponsored post, it was inspired by Shari’s Berries’ #HappinessHappens. I adore this company, not just for their treats but because they enjoy spreading happy.